List of movements that dispute the legitimacy of a reigning monarch

Last updated July 29, 2023

This is a list of movements that dispute the legitimacy of a reigning monarch. It includes those movements that believe a current monarch is on the throne unlawfully, but does not include groups that oppose monarchy generally (such as those that favor replacing a monarchy with a republican system of government).

Carlism

Carlism is a movement in that seeks the establishment of another line of the Bourbon family on the Spanish throne, in preference to the current Spanish King, Felipe VI. Carlists dispute that Ferdinand VII had the authority to change the Spanish monarchy's line of succession by issuing the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830 and claim that such document was without legal effect. The Pragmatica Sanción resulted in Fernando's daughter Isabella II, rather than his brother, Infante Carlos, becoming the Spanish monarch.^[1]

Jacobitism

Jacobitism asserts that the Glorious Revolution was unlawful and effected a de facto but not de jure change in the line of succession to the British Monarchy. In the Jacobite view, William and Mary of Orange and their successors were never legitimate British rulers. Instead, the lawful king or queen of England and Scotland has continued to be the heir-general of the House of Stuart.^[2]^[3]

Miguelism

Miguelism was a Portuguese movement named after king Miguel I of Portugal.

The death of King John VI of Portugal (1826) created a dispute over royal succession. While Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, was the king's oldest son, his younger brother Miguel contended that Pedro had forfeited his claim to the Portuguese throne by declaring Brazil's independence.

Pedro briefly entitled himself king (as Pedro IV of Portugal). Neither the Portuguese nor the Brazilians wanted a unified monarchy again. So, Pedro abdicated in favor of his daughter, Maria, a child of 7, with his sister Isabel Maria as regent.

However, the absolutist party of the landowners and the Church, were not satisfied with this compromise, and they continued to regard Miguel as the legitimate successor to the throne on the grounds that according to the Portuguese succession rules (approved by the Cortes after the 1640 Restoration), Pedro had lost the right to the Portuguese crown, when he took possession of a foreign crown (Brazil). They also were alarmed by the liberal reforms that had been initiated in Spain by the liberals.

In February 1828, Miguel returned to Portugal to take the oath of allegiance to the Charter and assume the regency. The Cortes of 1828 proclaiming him king as Miguel I of Portugal and he reigned from 1828 to 1834.

But in the end (after the Liberal Wars) the Miguelists (absolutists) were defeated and the king was exiled.^[4]

Legitimism

The Legitimists (French : Légitimistes) are royalists in France who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession of the descendants of the elder branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution.^[5]

Gustavians

The Gustavians (Swedish: Gustavianerna) were a political movement in the Kingdom of Sweden that supported King Gustav III of Sweden's absolutist government and attempted to uphold his legacy and defend the interests of his descendants of the House of Holstein-Gottorp following his assassination in 1792.

Sedevacantism

Sedevacantism holds that the current pope, Francis, is illegitimate. More generally, sedevacantists believe that the Chair of Saint Peter has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958 or Pope John XXIII in 1963 and that subsequent holders of the papal throne have not been true popes. This movement is largely driven by opposition to liturgical reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council, especially replacement of the Tridentine Mass with the Mass of Paul VI and authorizing the saying of the Mass in vernacular languages rather than ecclesiastical Latin.

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The Capetian dynasty, also known as the "House of France", is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Capet, the founder of the dynasty, and his male-line descendants, who ruled in France without interruption from 987 to 1792, and again from 1814 to 1848. The senior line ruled in France as the House of Capet from the election of Hugh Capet in 987 until the death of Charles IV in 1328. That line was succeeded by cadet branches, the Houses of Valois and then Bourbon, which ruled without interruption until the French Revolution abolished the monarchy in 1792. The Bourbons were restored in 1814 in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat, but had to vacate the throne again in 1830 in favor of the last Capetian monarch of France, Louis Philippe I, who belonged to the House of Orléans. Cadet branches of the Capetian House of Bourbon house are still reigning over Spain and Luxembourg.

The Liberal Wars, also known as the Portuguese Civil War, the War of the Two Brothers or Miguelite War, was a war between liberal constitutionalists and conservative absolutists in Portugal over royal succession that lasted from 1828 to 1834. Embroiled parties included the Kingdom of Portugal, Portuguese rebels, the United Kingdom, France, the Catholic Church, and Spain.

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DomDuarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza was the claimant to the defunct Portuguese throne, as both the Miguelist successor of his father, Miguel Januário, Duke of Braganza, and later as the head of the only Brigantine house, after the death of the last ruling Braganza, King Manuel II of Portugal. In 1952, when the Portuguese Laws of Banishment were repealed, the Duke moved his family to Portugal, thus returning the Miguelist Braganzas to their homeland and becoming the first of the former Portuguese royal dynasty to live in Portugal since the abolition of the monarchy, in 1910.

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This is a historical timeline of Portugal.

Infanta Isabel Maria of Braganza ; Queluz, 4 July 1801 – Benfica, then Belém, 22 April 1876 was a Portuguese infanta (princess) and fourth daughter of King John VI of Portugal and his wife Carlota Joaquina of Spain. She acted as regent for her brother Pedro IV and for her niece Maria II in 1826-1828.

The history of the kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves, from the First Treaty of San Ildefonso and the beginning of the reign of Queen Maria I in 1777, to the end of the Liberal Wars in 1834, spans a complex historical period in which several important political and military events led to the end of the absolutist regime and to the installation of a constitutional monarchy in the country.

The United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was a pluricontinental monarchy formed by the elevation of the Portuguese colony named State of Brazil to the status of a kingdom and by the simultaneous union of that Kingdom of Brazil with the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of the Algarves, constituting a single state consisting of three kingdoms.

DomSebastian Gabriel de Borbón y Braganza, Infante of Portugal and Spain, was an Iberian prince of the 19th century, progenitor of the Spanish ducal lines of Hernani, Ansola, Dúrcal and Marchena, and Carlist army commander in the First Carlist War.

Princess Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg was the wife of Miguel de Bragança, the former occupant of the Portuguese throne but only following his deposition. As a widow, she secured advantageous marriages for their six daughters.

Manuel Vieira de Albuquerque Touvar was a Portuguese nobleman who served first as Captain General in the colony of Brazil, but ultimately as the 9th Captain General of the archipelago of the Azores.

In the history of Portugal, a Miguelist was a supporter of the legitimacy of the king Miguel I of Portugal. The name is also given to those who supported absolutism as form of government, in opposition to the liberals who intended the establishment of a constitutional regime in Portugal.

In the Medieval Kingdom of Portugal, the Cortes was an assembly of representatives of the estates of the realm – the nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie. It was called and dismissed by the King of Portugal at will, at a place of his choosing. Cortes which brought all three estates together are sometimes distinguished as Cortes-Gerais, in contrast to smaller assemblies which brought only one or two estates, to negotiate a specific point relevant only to them.

The Charter of 1826 or Carta Constitucional, often simply referred to as the Carta, was the second constitution in Portuguese history. It was given to the country in 1826 by King Dom Pedro IV. The constitution remained in force, with the exceptions of the periods 1828–34 and 1838–42, until the fall of the monarchy in 1910. It was modified in 1852, 1865, 1896, and 1907. The constitution was modelled on the 1824 Brazilian constitution that Pedro imposed on the country, which in turn was modelled on the failed 1822 Portuguese Constitution, which in turn was modelled on the Spanish Constitution of 1812.

The Neo-Jacobite Revival was a political movement active during the 25 years before the First World War in the United Kingdom. The movement was monarchist, and had the specific aim of replacing British parliamentary democracy with a restored monarch from the deposed House of Stuart.

References

↑ "HRH Prince Carlos Hugo".
↑ J.C.D. Clark English Society 1660–1832 Cambridge University Press Second Edition (2000) p89
↑ H. Erskine-Hill, 'Literature and the Jacobite Cause: Was There a Rhetoric of Jacobitism?’, in E. Cruickshanks (ed.) "Ideology and Conspiracy: Aspects of Jacobitism, 1689–1759" J. Donald, Edinburgh (1982) p55
↑ Jean Pailler; Maria Pia of Braganza: The Pretender. New York: ProjectedLetters, 2006.
↑ Atkin, Nicholas; Biddiss, Michael; Tallett, Frank, eds. (2011). "Legitimism". The Wiley-Blackwell Dictionary of Modern European History Since 1789. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 239.

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[1] "HRH Prince Carlos Hugo".

[2] J.C.D. Clark English Society 1660–1832 Cambridge University Press Second Edition (2000) p89

[3] H. Erskine-Hill, 'Literature and the Jacobite Cause: Was There a Rhetoric of Jacobitism?’, in E. Cruickshanks (ed.) "Ideology and Conspiracy: Aspects of Jacobitism, 1689–1759" J. Donald, Edinburgh (1982) p55

[4] Jean Pailler; Maria Pia of Braganza: The Pretender. New York: ProjectedLetters, 2006.

[5] Atkin, Nicholas; Biddiss, Michael; Tallett, Frank, eds. (2011). "Legitimism". The Wiley-Blackwell Dictionary of Modern European History Since 1789. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 239.

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